Diana Shpungin, Erased 45, 2020
single-channel hand-drawn pencil animation
1 min 25 second, continuous loop, dimensions variable, ed of 3
Diana Shpungin, Erased 45, 2020
erased graphite pencil drawing
9 x 12 inches, 10 7/8 x 17 ¾ inches (framed)
Artist Diana Shpungin randomly came across a drawing made by our 45th president on an auction site. The drawing is a seemingly rushed cartoonish hand tracing, paired with a proportionately large signature in the hands center.
Post-election, she decided it would be an interesting exercise and a simultaneously taxing and cathartic task to embark on both recreating the drawing and erasing it.
What would it be like to embody the mark making (and publicly forge the signature) of our 45th leader, and further more to erase his mark and metaphorically his hand from our national psyche?
The hand-drawn pencil animation consists of five hundred photographic frames of the original drawing performance. The work is silent and loops, -drawing and erasing, repeating infinitely, suggesting this mark cannot truly be erased. While the accompanying erased drawing hangs side by side with the monitor with only a faint remnant of the original visible.
The title Erased 45 is a subtle homage to Robert Rauschenberg’s 1953 Erased de Kooning drawing.